"Tacoma, Wash., Jan. 5 (1915).—The Tacoma delegation to the legislature, which will meet on January 11, has been notified that a bill will be introduced for a State referendum on a law to prevent leasing of Washington land to Asiatics. Many members of the legislature are pledged to support the measure.
"Japanese gardeners, it is contended, are increasing in numbers, getting the best land about the cities under lease, and some of them lease land for 99 years or have a trustee buy it for them. Many Japanese marry 'picture brides' and later have their leases of titles transferred to their infant sons and daughters born here.
"An amendment submitted in November permitting aliens to own land in cities was overwhelmingly defeated."
There is very little doubt that the majority of the Japanese on the Pacific Coast are soldiers, veterans of the Japanese wars, and that in case of war Japan could mobilize on our territory between the Pacific Ocean and the inaccessible mountains constituting the Cascade and Sierra Nevada Ranges, more Japanese soldiers who are right now in that territory than we have United States troops in the whole mainland territory of the United States, or will have when our army is enlisted up to its full strength of 100,000 men.
The figures given in "The Valor of Ignorance" show that in 1907 there were 62,725 Japanese of military age in the States of Washington and California. Since then, up to June 30, 1914, the Japanese immigration has been 50,481, and nearly all of those who come are men of military age. So that now we have no doubt more trained Japanese soldiers in California, Oregon and Washington, than our entire standing army if it were enlisted to its full quota of 100,000 men, including every soldier we have, wherever he may be stationed.
And at the rate they are now coming, in ten years we will have more than our entire standing army would then be if we increased it to 200,000, as the Militarists urge should be done.
What are we going to do about it?
That is the question that stares every citizen of the United States straight in the face.
It may be that all cannot be brought to agree as to what ought to be done, but certainly all must agree that something should be done, and it is equally certain that neither an Exclusion Law, nor an Alien Land Law, nor an Alien Leasing Law, will settle the question, or relieve the strain of racial competition that is certain, unless obviated, to eventually breed an armed conflict with Japan.
The same author who has been previously quoted, referring to the Philippine Islands, says: